THE COMET OF PROPHECY
I had hold of the comet’s mane
A-clinging like grim death.
I passed the dearest star of all,
The one with violet breath:
The blue-gold-silver Venus star,
And almost lost my hold....
Again I ride the chaos-tide,
Again the winds are cold.
I look ahead, I look above,
I look on either hand.
I cannot sight the fields I seek,
The holy No-Man’s-Land.
And yet my heart is full of faith.
My comet splits the gloom,
His red mane slaps across my face,
His eyes like bonfires loom.
My comet smells the far off grass
Of valleys richly green.
My comet sights strange continents
My sad eyes have not seen,
We gallop through the whirling mist.
My good steed cannot fail.
And we shall reach that flowery shore,
And wisdom’s mountain scale.
And I shall find my wizard cloak
Beneath that alien sky
And touching black soil to my lips
Begin to prophesy.
While chaos sleet and chaos rain
Beat on an Indian Drum
There in tomorrow’s moon I stand
And speak the age to come.
“Confucius appeared, according to Mencius, one of his most distinguished followers, at a crisis in the nation’s history. ‘The world,’ he says, ‘had fallen into decay, and right principles had disappeared. Perverse discourses and oppressive deeds were waxen rife. Ministers murdered their rulers, and sons their fathers. Confucius was frightened by what he saw,—and he undertook the work of reformation.’
“He was a native of the state of Lu, a part of the modern Shantung.... Lu had a great name among the other states of Chow ... etc.” Rev. James Legge, Professor of Chinese, University of Oxford.